The board of Brigham Exploration Co catered to the company's founder at the expense of shareholders in agreeing to sell the company to Norwegian energy giant Statoil , according to a shareholder lawsuit.The $4.4 billion deal reached last week sent Brigham Exploration's shares up 20 percent. Statoil would gain access to unconventional energy resources in the United States, a key growth area for the company.Brigham Exploration's founder and chief executive, Ben Brigham, and his brother and company director David Brigham convinced a "pliable" board to forgo any attempt to sell the company to a higher bidder, according to the lawsuit.The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, requests an injunction to prevent the merger from closing. The defendants are the board as well as Brigham Exploration and Statoil.
Brigham Exploration Company is an independent exploration, development and production company that utilizes advanced exploration, drilling and completion technologies to systematically explore for, develop and produce domestic onshore crude oil and natural gas reserves. Shares of BEXP fell by 0.05% or $-0.02/share to $36.50. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $18.55 and as high as $37.87. On average, 4571930 shares of BEXP exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 3544730.
